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Terraforming Mars is one of the most popular heavy strategy games of the last two years (read our 2016 review); it earned a nomination for the Kennerspiel des Jahres (expert’s “game of the year”), losing to the very good but much simpler Exit: The Game series. It’s currently ranked #4 on BoardGameGeek’s master ranking of all board games, a ranking that tends to skew towards complex games that eschew luck in favor of strategy and engine building.

Now, an adaptation from Asmodee Digital brings the game to Windows via Steam. (Android and iOS ports are coming soon.) The Windows port offers local play, online multiplayer, and a solo challenge mode that functions as a good learning tool in addition to providing a strong single-player experience.

Martian science

Players in Terraforming Mars are trying to, well, terraform Mars—and rack up the most points while doing so. All players contribute to three common goals around the terraforming effort: increasing the planet’s surface temperatures to eight Celsius, increasing the atmospheric oxygen levels to 14 percent, and placing nine ocean tiles on the board.

(Science fiction fans may already notice the similarities to Kim Stanley Robinson’s book Red Mars, which designer Jacob Fryxelius says directly inspired this game. I think the book is dreadful, but the game is fun.)

Players get two actions per turn, and rounds (called “generations”) continue until all players have passed. Most actions involve playing cards from your hand that increase your abilities, give you one-time rewards, increase one of those three common variables, or sabotage an opponent. Players get income each turn based on their terraforming index, which they can increase by bumping up any of the three terraforming variables or by playing specific cards. At the start of each round, players receive four cards at random from the deck and can buy any or all of them for three megacredits (stylized as M€) each. Play continues until the players achieve all three terraforming goals or the 15th round is complete.

A ton of information is involved in Terraforming Mars, and once again the folks at Asmodee Digital have done a solid job of making everything available to players without cluttering the screen. Your six resources are shown on the left side of the bottom info bar, while additional actions, your in-game victory point count, your played card tags (types), and information on special corporation effects are available on the right.

You can easily see what cards you’ve already played; cards in Terraforming Mars have a lot of text, so you’ll usually have to click the card and then click through to get to the full text to see any card’s entire list of effects. When you get enough plants or heat to convert those into a greenery tile or into an increase in the surface temperature, there’s a little pop-up above those resources, small but clearly visible. The top bar, which I admit I didn’t notice until well into my first game in the app, also allows you to see milestones and awards, of which up to three can come into play in any game once a player achieves them and uses an action to ‘fund’ one.

The biggest flaw in the current release is that there’s no undo function anywhere, even though you get two actions per turn and thus should have at least some ability to roll back certain moves. The app includes the goofy text from the physical cards in a pop-up you get when you click on a card, which pushes some of the critical information on how the card works on to a second screen you access by clicking a small ‘i’ on the card. Forgetting that you have unique actions available to you is a little too easy—a dialog reminding you of those options when you hit Pass would be useful. I also found the app more user-friendly when I set the animation speed to Fast and turned off the movement of the planet on the screen.

The app has a solo mode that is probably its best feature, although it too could use some modest tweaks to improve the user experience. It’s a heck of a challenge: you get 15 generations (rounds) to terraform the red planet by reaching the same three thresholds that apply to the base game. If you get the temperature up to eight Celsius, the oxygen level to X percent, and place nine ocean tiles, you win; if you miss any of those three targets, you lose. Terraforming does keep score, so you can compare how you did across plays, but I found it enough of a challenge to just beat the thing that I didn’t have any spare time to worry about racking up points.

You get your choice of two corporations at the start of the game—I won with Ecoline, if you’re interested—and then play proceeds more or less as normal. There are two neutral cities on the board, and if you play a card that tells you to take something from another player, you just take it from the neutral player, which is as good as ignoring that part of the card. Even if you intend to use the multiplayer function or play the AI, the solo challenge is a great way to develop your engine-building strategies, because you get very little slack; if you don’t start early, you’re not going to finish all three goals. When I did finally win, it took a card (Deimos: “We weren’t using that moon anyway”) that let me bump up the temperature three ticks, plus another 14 Martian bucks to get it the last tick up to the top of the thermometer.

No going back alone

There’s still no undo function in solo mode, which is absurd for a solo game as long as you haven’t revealed any hidden information (which in this game only includes card draws). The end-game screen only says YOU WIN! or YOU LOSE! with your point total, without showing how close you came to hitting all three targets.

The Terraforming Marsapp is $24.99 on Steam, which is still half what you’d pay for the physical game. The current version, which has already had a few bug fixes, has run steadily for me through a dozen or more plays without glitches or any glaring mistakes in game play. The main thing missing from the app that you get with the cardboard experience is the drafting variant. With this variant in play, you acquire cards via a card-drafting mechanism instead of getting them at random; this set-up can make the game a bit longer but further reduces the randomness of the deck. It’s a big deal to serious Terraforming Mars players, and Asmodee Digital has promised the feature as a December update.

For relative novices like me—I have played the physical game just a few times, and playing the app was almost like learning the game from scratch—the digital version is a great learning tool, fun to play on its own, and offers AI options good enough to help you hone your game.

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45 Reader Comments

It's actually been a very buggy rollout with some very poor UX decisions. (Examples, beyond "undo", including way too much pointless modal "ok" clicks, buried information, terrible time monitoring, and nonsensical inability to turn off animations.) Some cards stil don't work right, e.g., Predators, while some functions don't allow you chose a non-action, e.g., Sell Patents.

Nevertheless, great game and it's blast playing others online and the game will hit its stride once Drafting is implemented.

I like playing board games on the computer while I sit on my western riding saddle I installed as my vehicle driver seat.

Yee haw cowpokes!

Only joking. Looks boring though, just my opinion.

Board games rely on other people being in the same room.

Um do you know how few people actually board game, not to mention how few people actually board game beyond say monopoly or UNO (yes I’m making that a verb)? Unless your in a major city that has gameshops that aren’t overwhelmed by card game or minatur wargaming players on the weekends it’s not exactly easy to find fellow board gamers offline.

There's still plenty of bugs in the game. One fun bug I ran into at launch was that hitting ESC to back out of menus would sometimes cause the interface to become totally unresponsive and the only fix was to force quit the entire game and then rejoin the game. One person I know is simply unable to see his heat production/bank while playing.

There's also poor UX choices like locking you out of seeing some information that you really need while doing things like deciding on card draws. And you can't invite people to games through Steam chat, you have to create an Asmodee account and add people through the in-game chat area.

I was super hyped for this, and it's still fun on the whole, but unfortunately by the time I realized they'd shipped a paid beta test I was past the two hour refund window on Steam.

The idea of Terra-forming Mars in digital form is great for a class of game player that is happy with board games in digital format. If you want to play the game whilst not at a table then this is probably a good fit and would certainly recommend the game if you enjoy playing a board game on a computer.

I am unlikely to buy it though as when I play board games, I want the physical interaction with the game. The whole point of board gaming for me is to escape the relentless digital invasion into our daily lives. When I board game, I generally won't have technology at the table unless absolutely needed, i.e. to look up rules questions at BGG or to find names for characters in KD:M. When phones are at the table, they generally end up distracting the players, me included.

I play TM (the cardboard version) both solo and with friends and it is a great game in spite of the cheap arse components. The solo game is winnable about 50% of the time for me which fits nicely in the 'winnable but not too easy' bracket. It usually takes at least 3 generations before your engine starts to produce and quite often isn't until generation 10 before it really takes off. I have on had one win at generation 14 whilst the rest have been moderate to tight wins at generation 15.

This game is a good combination of puzzle, luck and skill and would recommend that if you haven't played it, find someone who has it and give it a go.

That said, I do want this game, and I don't even mind the 25 dollar price, but I think I'll put it on my wishlist for a month or two just to see if they address any of the more egregious bugs/UI issues.

Also, to address the "physical vs. virtual" issues ("but books have a smell! I can't read it right if it doesn't smell!") well, preferences aside one of the neat things about this modern age is the ease of keeping up with friends that have traveled afar. It's nice to be able to sit down at the computer and play some games with a once neighbor who might be halfway across the world right now.

It's actually possible to use the Steam link Beta for Android and stream from your PC to a tablet or phone. It works great most of the time. I use it so my wife and I can play in the same room together.

The game works very well using the mouse control on the tablet.

There were definitely some bugs on release and it probably should have been Early Access so people knew it wasn't a polished product. Hopefully enough people pick it up that they continue to add the expansions. Personally I don't care about the drafting variant.

So this is only the base game without expansions? Any word on adding the expansions? The latest one that lets you customize your corporation is nice, and I like the alternate boards for variety reasons

So this is only the base game without expansions? Any word on adding the expansions? The latest one that lets you customize your corporation is nice, and I like the alternate boards for variety reasons

If it Is anything like other implementations those will be paid for expansions. It is pretty much how all digital implementations go.

I'm not sure what the author intends by that. Surprised that it isn't free? Just, odd.

Anyway, the board game is $45 and digital is $25, but presumably everyone playing the digital version would need to shell out $25. If four people would otherwise play the $45 game, those same people would be on the hook for $100 collectively. That's fine for folks that know they like the game, but what about the common board game scenario where one guy owns the game and his three friends think it's fun to play here and there (but not so fun that they buy their own boxes)?

To maintain the analogy, it would be interesting if there were a free digital version that let you play up to, say, three games per month as long as one of the people in the game had a paid version.

As for Terraforming Mars, I haven't played it, but I might now. Thanks for the review! (You can keep the $25 comment though.)

I am extremely fond of the physical board game. We don't play it often, but it's always a very interesting time. When we finish a game, EVERYONE knows who lost the worst, but nobody is sure who won the most.

I'll be wish listing on steam, just in case they lower the price during upcoming sales. I will be picking it up, just want to watch the price first.

The idea of Terra-forming Mars in digital form is great for a class of game player that is happy with board games in digital format. ...I am unlikely to buy it though as when I play board games, I want the physical interaction with the game....

It is sad that for all 'digitalized boardgames' no-one has nailed the format yet.

Each player should have their own view on their phone, cards hidden from everyone else.The game should offer a spectator view, to put the board and stats on the big screen TV for all.Perfect for a nice couch coop - and since you have the game on the phones it shouldn't be distracting.

Note that for example chomecast don't use your phone at all, it's trivial implement a way to play your part on your phone and simultaneously let the chromecast connect to the same game online as a spectator if you already have online in the game.

I play TM (the cardboard version) both solo and with friends and it is a great game in spite of the cheap arse components. The solo game is winnable about 50% of the time for me which fits nicely in the 'winnable but not too easy' bracket. .. spoilers ...

The solo part is great - I've played a lot of pandemic on my phone and will definitely get this for a concentrated off-line game. Perfect for flights.

I'm also tempted by the cheap-arse game since it would force me to buy a 3d printer.

If you think that's the biggest flaw in the current release, you actually have not played the game. Reading a few reviews on pay-to-play "gaming" sites shouldn't qualify you to write an article.

The biggest flaw with the game right now is that it literally does not display the same game state to all players.

In other words, the game does not work.

Of course it also CTDs regularly, cards do not always actually function, the AI is hilariously stupid (even the hard difficulty setting has the AI giving you VPs throughout the game), the UI is atrocious, menu setting simply do not work, I've personally never had a multiplayer game complete as they always freeze, the "game variants" don't actually implement the rules they claim to implement, and there are fewer features in the game than in the base board game.

It's a disaster through and through.

There is no way your assertion that you've played through with no glitches is anything but a lie. You would literally be the only person who has played the game through with no bugs.

There is no way your assertion that you've played through with no glitches is anything but a lie. You would literally be the only person who has played the game through with no bugs.

This is appalling "journalism" and Ars needs to take action.

Whoa, tone down the abuse a notch. Before you accuse someone else of professional fraud, maybe ask whether it’s possible that you have different opinions about things like the UI & AI or that, say, a reviewer might have stressed solo play more than multiplayer or that the multiplayer problems you encountered might have been triggered by network or server issues which don’t affect everyone all of the time.

Based on the Steam reviews, it definitely sounds like the AI weak but also that you haven’t made the case that it’s so unplayable that a non-negative review has to be fraudulent.

I've had the game on my wish list for a while, but haven't pulled the trigger because I have several kickstarted games eventually showing up to claim what's left of my limited cupboard space. An iOS version for my iPad sounds like it will scratch this itch nicely--and optimistically, by the time the port is done, perhaps they will have addressed some of the bugs mentioned in the comments here.

Yes, this is about twice what I would pay for a digital boardgame, particularly one that does not offer much beyond the cardboard variety- and I love this game. I know development costs money, but there are no original mechanics, not really much original artwork, and the cardboard variant already has a solo mode. Add to that Asmodee is not great with patching their digital games (I own several of them).

That said I have a regular boardgame group in my (large) village that gets 6-12 people every week. I can see if you can't get regular opponents that it might appeal, but this seems too much if you get to play physical games regularly. I do buy digital boardgames, I bought the digital versions of Agricola, Talisman, and Lords of Waterdeep, but these 3 combined cost less than this.

I have this and solo mode is 14 generations and, more importantly, it does NOT keep score between plays. I regard this as a design mistake.

The other mistakes include lack of undo, as mentioned, and lack of drafting. The lack of undo is particularly annoying for cards that subtract from anyone's production and you forget to check if any opponent has appropriate production to lose. You can end up unable to undo the loss of your own production. It is rules legal to play a card to subtracts your own production then gains the same amount.

Nonetheless, for me, it is still the Terraforming Mars game and worth it.

I'm not sure what the author intends by that. Surprised that it isn't free? Just, odd.

Anyway, the board game is $45 and digital is $25, but presumably everyone playing the digital version would need to shell out $25. If four people would otherwise play the $45 game, those same people would be on the hook for $100 collectively. That's fine for folks that know they like the game, but what about the common board game scenario where one guy owns the game and his three friends think it's fun to play here and there (but not so fun that they buy their own boxes)?

To maintain the analogy, it would be interesting if there were a free digital version that let you play up to, say, three games per month as long as one of the people in the game had a paid version.

As for Terraforming Mars, I haven't played it, but I might now. Thanks for the review! (You can keep the $25 comment though.)

It is pretty expensive. The board game is $70 for 5 players, or, $14 each. This requires each person to buy it, so, if you and your same friends want to play this way, it comes to $125. It does apparently give you local play but who is really going to play a board game on a computer if everyone is in the same room? Just play the actual board game. You can actually get the board game for under $50, but the price on the package is $70 so I listed that.

At the present price of about $45 for the board game, by the time you have bought two copies on the computer, you have paid more than the cost of the actual game. You really need to want to play this online in order to do it.

The other mistakes include lack of undo, as mentioned, and lack of drafting. The lack of undo is particularly annoying for cards that subtract from anyone's production and you forget to check if any opponent has appropriate production to lose. You can end up unable to undo the loss of your own production. It is rules legal to play a card to subtracts your own production then gains the same amount.

For the bolded I think it's just an issue of being a little over-zealous with doing some streamlining that was always going to be necessary to translate physical to digital. But for drafting, while I was extremely annoyed at the lack of drafting since I've never actually read the rulesbook and was just taught to play by people who always do drafting...apparently it's not even discussed in the rulesbook as an "official" variant? That same group of people who taught me to play had to point that one out to me. Especially since they've said it's coming, even though it's apparently such a popular variant that they had to know people would bitch about it not being included, it's hard for me to get worked up about the omission of an unofficial variant. Doubly so since apparently getting the official version of the game working properly was a herculean task for them.

I'm not sure what the author intends by that. Surprised that it isn't free? Just, odd.

Anyway, the board game is $45 and digital is $25, but presumably everyone playing the digital version would need to shell out $25. If four people would otherwise play the $45 game, those same people would be on the hook for $100 collectively. That's fine for folks that know they like the game, but what about the common board game scenario where one guy owns the game and his three friends think it's fun to play here and there (but not so fun that they buy their own boxes)?

To maintain the analogy, it would be interesting if there were a free digital version that let you play up to, say, three games per month as long as one of the people in the game had a paid version.

As for Terraforming Mars, I haven't played it, but I might now. Thanks for the review! (You can keep the $25 comment though.)

Not being remotely a frequent flyer on buying digital versions of physical board games, but being a regular PC game buyer, I was actually pleasantly surprised by the $25 price point. I didn't think it was going to be $60 but my gut expectation based on my PC gaming experience had been more like $40.

I have this and solo mode is 14 generations and, more importantly, it does NOT keep score between plays. I regard this as a design mistake.

Sorry, what do you mean by keeping score between plays? Just letting you know if you're getting better at solo play over time?

At minimum, showing your best solo challenge score so far. It would be better if it recorded best score for each corporation, maintained a global leaderboard, and recorded scores for today/this month/so far, much like Ticket To Ride.

The other mistakes include lack of undo, as mentioned, and lack of drafting. The lack of undo is particularly annoying for cards that subtract from anyone's production and you forget to check if any opponent has appropriate production to lose. You can end up unable to undo the loss of your own production. It is rules legal to play a card to subtracts your own production then gains the same amount.

For the bolded I think it's just an issue of being a little over-zealous with doing some streamlining that was always going to be necessary to translate physical to digital. But for drafting, while I was extremely annoyed at the lack of drafting since I've never actually read the rulesbook and was just taught to play by people who always do drafting...apparently it's not even discussed in the rulesbook as an "official" variant? That same group of people who taught me to play had to point that one out to me. Especially since they've said it's coming, even though it's apparently such a popular variant that they had to know people would bitch about it not being included, it's hard for me to get worked up about the omission of an unofficial variant. Doubly so since apparently getting the official version of the game working properly was a herculean task for them.

An over-zealous streamlining is still a design mistake as the annoyance still exists. It would not be difficult to add a cancel button when making a choice of opponent to hurt, especially as the game changes nothing till you make that choice. Even if you want to be rules legal, the rules do not require a card play to be completed once it's declared. By board game convention, if you declare a play and quickly realise it's a bad idea, other players don't object to you quickly undoing it.

As for drafting, it's in the rulebook on page 13, not merely some idea in Board Game Geek, therefore it's an official variant. And a popular one at that. The publisher should have seen that row coming and the impact on Steam reviews. I say the publisher would have been better off delaying again and releasing with the drafting variant to get better user reviews.

Funny enough, I had a very much trouble free experience with the game till last patch; since then 1 in every 3 matches with the AI will hang while choosing cards at the beggining of a random generation.

Got it a bit cheap (took advantage of the Essen related discount) and ... well, we love Terraforming Mars at the group I play, we play A LOT of it, we are now playing with all the expansions... and yet I go home and now and then fire it to play a bit more. Ok ,the AI doesnt hold a candle next to even the most dense of our group (which probably is me a lot of the time), but at least I get to practice ideas about what to buy and not buy, etc.

If they add drafting and fix bugs, it may be a nice thing to have, and have more value for those that just cant find a group; but that will require an active population, of course. And that is always a bit of a problem. At least for me - Analisys Paralisys on the table is one thing, but when everybody is unresponsive on a game you dont know if they are thinking, got interrupted by real life, or just left it there while they did something else.

Funny enough, I had a very much trouble free experience with the game till last patch; since then 1 in every 3 matches with the AI will hang while choosing cards at the beggining of a random generation.

Got it a bit cheap (took advantage of the Essen related discount) and ... well, we love Terraforming Mars at the group I play, we play A LOT of it, we are now playing with all the expansions... and yet I go home and now and then fire it to play a bit more. Ok ,the AI doesnt hold a candle next to even the most dense of our group (which probably is me a lot of the time), but at least I get to practice ideas about what to buy and not buy, etc.

If they add drafting and fix bugs, it may be a nice thing to have, and have more value for those that just cant find a group; but that will require an active population, of course. And that is always a bit of a problem. At least for me - Analisys Paralisys on the table is one thing, but when everybody is unresponsive on a game you dont know if they are thinking, got interrupted by real life, or just left it there while they did something else.

The AI feels like it moves oddly slow. I'm not sure if it's actually taking the AI that long to figure everything out or if they're just trying to give the human player time to keep track of everything, but either way, it winds up feeling like they're bogging the game down for no real reason. I'd rather have the option to enable a "turbo" setting and then just review what the AI players did before proceeding to take my actions.

And for anyone who disagrees about how slow the AI players are, try playing a solo game if you haven't yet. It's night and day, those go REALLY quick if you don't need to spend a ton of time analyzing your cards.